Arizona Phony

I am sorely disappointed by today’s news that you will vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, proving that your request for a further FBI investigation was merely a show, winning you some national attention while playing the American people for stooges. In the end you concluded the White House-constrained FBI investigation was “thorough,” when it is public knowledge now that significant leads were not followed and key witnesses not interviewed. It was a sham. So you are a liar as well as a showman.

Your brief and misleading turn as a putative hero in this crisis of partisanship threatening our democracy will be replaced permanently in chronicles of American history with the plain truth that you are, on the contrary, a profile in cowardice. You will indeed be famous—or, more accurately, infamous. I’m trying to imagine what that would feel like.

You had nothing to lose by voting your conscience on Kavanaugh, but that assumes that you have a conscience.

About Sean Mitchell

SEAN MITCHELL is a journalist, critic and former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Herald Examiner and Dallas Times Herald. His articles and reviews have also appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, USA Today and other publications. He is the recipient of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music and the George Jean Nathan Award for distinguished drama criticism.
Born in Bethlehem, Pa., he grew up in Dallas and is a graduate of St. Mark’s School of Texas and Brown University. He lives in Dallas.